Language maintenance and development

There are
over Twenty lakh Kurukhs, (or Oraons) in India who speak Kurukh language
natively. Major concentration of the Kurukhs is in the adjoining districts
of Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh which formed
erstwhile Chotanagpur and Central Provinces- the homeland of Kurukhs from
where they have migrated to other parts of the country, and to the
neighboring countries like Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh.

Kurux
remained as a spoken language till the advent of European Christian
missionaries in the year 1845. They published grammars of language for their
workers to learn it, and then prepared books on religious instruction for
the Kurukhs to follow the new religion Christianity. The absence of written
documents makes it very difficult to write any historical background of the
Kurukh people. Roy (1915:28) opines that the Kurux migrated to up country
from the Deccan Plateau. But there is hardly any substantive evidence to
support this claim. Traditional stories and folktales suggest that Kurukh
once inhabited the Gangetic Plateau from where Aryan and Muslim invaders
drove them to the hilly regions of the Chotanagpur Plateau and Central
Provinces.

Kurukhs
mostly live in villages and their primary occupation is agriculture, through
in modern days they have entered into commercial business and white colored
jobs. A typical Kurukh village consists of a majority of Kurukh families and
a few non- Kurukh artisan families who function as the helpers to the
former. So in almost every Kurukhs village, there is a non- Kurukhs family
of blackmails who look after their cattle; potters who make earthen ware for
their domestic use; weavers who weave their clothes; basket makers who weave
or plait their baskets; and the dancers who play music at their social
functions (Roy 1915:68). The artisan families who assist Kurukhs in their
economy speak Indo-Aryan or Munda languages. Thus even in a primitive Kurukh
settlement Kurukhs have contact with the speakers of other languages.
However, contact with these artisan families is superficial as they are not
forceful elements to effect bilingual situation, mainly because Kurukh in
such settlements form dominant groups. Socio-linguistic set up across a
Kurukh village presents a complicated picture Increased social and economic
developmental programmes of government and private agencies have introduced
regional languages of the States in which a Kurukh has to communicate with
the non- Kurux government officers and social workers, and send their
children to schools where the medium of instruction in a States languages,
and he almost invariably uses a variety of regional language to communicate
with non- Kurukh. The organization of States divide the Kurukh homeland into
four different States as a result of which Kurukhs population is politically
fragmented and culturally and linguistically divided. The impact of the
three important majority State languages, such as Hindi in Bihar
Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, Bengali in Bengal and Oriya in Orissa is
very heavy, resulting in a widespread tendency among them to shift from
their native language to the majority State languages. Besides being divided
into different political areas, Kurukh ethic group has been divided into two
major religious groups: Christians and non-Christians, and among these two
groups, the latter group forms the majority. Factors contributing to the
maintenance of their language must be examined against this background.

The
majority of the Kurukhs in Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh maintain
their language, the majority of them in Orissa and west Bengal have shifted
to other languages. It is significant to note that in every State the
languages to which the Kurukhs have shifted are the regional languages.
Thus, in Bihar 10.3 per cent of the Kurukhs have shifted to Sadani, which is
a variety of Bhojpuri and 8.05 percent to Hindi; in Chhattisgarh and Madhya
Pradesh 8.4 per cent have shifted to Hindi and 1.69 to Chattisgarhi; in
Orissa 44,45 per cent to Oriya and in Bengali 11.12 per cent to Bengali.

The
Kurukhs, who are geo-politically divided, have varied communicational needs.
Kurukhs in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar need Hindi for their
educational and socio-economic development, and those, in West Bengal and
Orissa need Bengali and Oriya respectively. They have only two choices
before them: one is to maintain stable bilingualism in Kurukhs and the State
language, or other languages. We have seen that in Chhatisgath, Madhya
Pradesh and Bihar the Kurukhs who opt for the first choice outnumber those
who opt for the second. The situation in just the opposite in the case of
Kurux in West Bengal and Orissa where the majority of Kurukhs opt for the
second choice. Generally, the educated Kurukhs favors the first choice, but
not all. Those who favors the second believe that the continued use of
Kurukhs in day to day conversation would reduce the amount of practice
needed by the Kurukhs students in understanding and using respective state
languages which they need to master for their educational progress and
economic and social advancement.

While
examining movements for language maintenance and loyalty among the Kurukhs
it is important to realize the fact they are a disunited ethnic group living
across different, through contiguous States. There has been total lack of
organized efforts for the maintenance of the Kurukhs language at the
national level. Nor has there been such efforts at popular level in the
States. The two main reasons for lack of any organized efforts are general
lack of education and poor economy. The policies and programmes of the
following agencies relating to language have some impact on the position of
the Kurukh language.

Church

There
are four major Christian missions, viz. Gossner Evangilical Lutheran Mission
(Berlin), Roman Catholic Mission (Belgium), the United Free Church Mission (Scottland),
and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (London) (Mahto : 1971 :
2). The primary aim of these Christian missions was to spread christianity
among the various tribes of the Chotanagpur area. They preached for
renouncing traditional music, dancing, witchcraft and drinking etc..
Fortunately, they did not ask them to renounce their language. In fact
churches have contributed much to the development of the Kurukh language
through their pioneering grammarians, such as Rev. O.Flex (1874), Rev. F.
Batseh (1886), rev. F. Hahn (1898), Rev. A. Grignard (1924) and Rev. C.
Bleses (1956) whose grammers and dictionaries later served as the bases for
translating Christian literature in to the Kurukh langauge. The policy of
the church has been to preach its followers in their own native language and
this has led to nativising all worship rituals. The extensive use of Kurukhs
books such as Girija Dandi (Hymn), Kurux Negchar (Kurux Order of Worship),
Dharam Puthi:

Puna
Gacharka (New Testament) and other similar books on Christian worship has
not only helped to maintain the language but also has induced unity among
the Kurukhs living across different States. However, for administrative
convenience missionaries use regional languages particularly in the
multilingual congregations. Thus in the areas where the church is well
established, church services are conducted in the regional languages, and in
the congregations. Thus in the areas where the church is well establish,
church services are conducted in the regional languages, and in the
congregation of new converts who normally lack competence in the regional
languages, church services are conducted in Kurukh. The use of the regional
languages for the religious sermons and worships relevant to their religious
practice is less meaningful as not all the Kurukhs have competence of the
standard variety of the regional languages in which the books are written.
However, the use of the regional languages for church administration permits
greater mobility of the clergy in different tribal and non-tribal language
areas which is impossible if the church uses Kurukh alone as its language.

Education

Before
Independence, there were very few schools, mostly run by the church to cater
to the educational needs of the Christian Kuruxs in the Chotanagpur area.
Today there are several schools in the area run by both government and
private agencies. Medium of instruction in these schools is invariably the
regional languages of the States. Though there is constitutional provision
to use minority and tribal language as medium of instruction where majority
of the students in a school come from one linguistic background, Kurukh has
not been used as a medium of instruction. It is often argued that the use of
the Kurukh language as the medium of instruction will hamper learning of
regional languages which would be the only language used in the higher
education. This fear is justified when there is no systematic language
teaching material for gradual switch over to the regional language. There
are problems of non-availability of teaching particularly in the government
schools. Unfortunately the Kurukh language is associated with low
socio-economic status, backwardness and ignorance and so time it has failed
to provide adequate facilities for learning regional language as a result of
which the Kuruxs continue to remain deficient in the regional language in
which they have to complete for jobs.

Kurukh
language was introduced first time in Gossner Collage Ranchi in 1971. Than
Kurukh study was started in Ranchi Univercity in 1980. It had been started
in the both institutions due to the amazing efforts of Dr. Nirmal Minj. Kurukhs language has been
included in the degree courses as one of the
Modern Indian Languages at the Ranchi University recently. It is however too
early to say whether it has any favorable impact on the maintenance of the
Kuruxs language.

Press and Radio

Most
rural Kurukhs have very little access to general information on national
event, employment etc. Those who have, generally get it from newspapers
published in the regional languages. There is complete lack of periodicals
and news bulletins published in the Kurukh from time to time, such as Bij
Biinko (Morning Star) published for only six months in 1940; Dhumkuria
(Dormitory or House of Learning) published for about a year and a half
during the years 1962-1963. The publication of these monthly magazines had
been stopped for want of adequate finance. Another major factor responsible
for the discontinuation of these magazines is their very low circulation
which seems to be natural for a speech community whose literacy rate is
10.56 per cent. Besides monthly journals, there is some creative literature
written by the Kurukhs. These include Munta Pump Jhumpa (Bunch of First
Flowers) by Dawle Kujur (1950) ; Innelanta (Present day0 by Ignes Kujur
(1962); Kurukh Sanni Kiiri (Kurux Short Stories) by Julius Tigga (1962).
There are a few other books for adult education, such as Pardikarge Angitana
Puthi ( book for adult literary ) by C. M. Tiga (1939), Luurgahi Mahba (the
importance of learning) by C. M. Tiga (1940?) Bolo Ganit (elementary
Arithmatic) by C. M. Toppo (1940).

The All
India Radio, Ranchi, presents programmes in the Kurux language which include
broadcasts of Kurukhs songs and discussion on current topics.

Organizations

The
Kurukhs leaders, both clergy and political, who are most influential in
representing their people have almost invariably abandoned their language
and switched over to the regional languages. Organizations and institutions
developed by such leaders are directed almost entirely toward impressing
upon their followers about the importance of the regional languages. Their
goal is to promote effective fluency in the regional languages. This is done
at the expense of Kurukh by either ignoring or condemning it. The Christian
associations under different church denominations, for example, conduct
their activities in the regional languages, and in the mission schools the
use of Kurukh for day today communication among the Kurukh students is
prohibted.

Traditional youth organizations are deteriorating (among the Christian
Kurukhs) and have been replaced by youth organizations under the direct
control of the clergy. But they do very little to the language. The Catholic
Sabha is the Central Catholic organization dealing with the educational,
social and economic problems of the Catholic Christians in the Chotanagpur
area, but this has done nothing for the development of the Kurukh language.
There have been some efforts to from a Kurukh language and culture society
to safeguard the linguistic and cultural interests of the Kurukhs. But no
tangible results have been achieved yet. There is an increasing trend in all
organizations to acknowledge that power in the state or national scene
requires fluency in the regional languages. But this tends to negate many
positive values in the Kurux language and culture and overlooks the
possibility of maintaining the Kurukhs language without hampering the
economic and educational interests of the people.

To
conclude, a plenty of Kurukhs (near about 8,00,000 out of total 20,00,000)
have abandoned the Kurukh language. There has been total lack of organized
efforts for the few educational Kurukh who understand the value of
maintaining their languages. However, these efforts could not be sustained
because of the low literacy rate and poverty. with the speedy spread of
education among the Kurukhs, there is steady growth of political
consciousness and there is hope for the maintenance of tribal values,
customs and language.